zai jian Crack Den

Yesterday I finished class at 5pm to find my school's caretaker waiting to rush me home to move. I had absolutely zero notice that it was going to be moving day, so my stuff was definitely not set up for quick transport. The caretaker brought an older gentleman from Singapore that teaches English as well and two young, male Chinese TAs to help move me. My replacement from Tianjin, who is in town for the Happy Songyuan English Speaking Contest, also came along, as she was moving into The Crack Den for the remainder of her visit.

It was a crazy scene there with four men I barely know manhandling all my stuff and throwing it into whatever bag was closest to them, just to get it moved asap. I'm talking shower stuff, groceries, dirty laundry, everything. The caretaker sitting on my obnoxious, purple crocodile suitcase to zip it closed was priceless. My Tianjin replacement was just watching and I'm sure being thankful it wasn't her stuff getting tossed around.

My bags are not small, but these frail looking Chinese men lugged them down four flights of stairs into the van. Luckily my new place is on the first floor and near The Crack Den but definitely a quicker walk to school.

The new place is bigger, especially the bathroom, which was my main issue. I have some shelving in my wardrobe, which is great and a bigger bed too. The bed is actually a Chinese version of memory foam, as opposed to the hard-as-a-board-we-don't-use-springs mattresses in most places, which is nice too.

I am actually fully unpacked now, for the first time in China! Very exciting for me. I'm trying to get rid of one more bag of stuff, which will bring me down to three huge bags to check when I travel and a large carry on. It's a lot of stuff, but not when you consider the fact that it's everything I own. Lots of the younger foreigners still have stuff at their parents' homes, but mine lived across the country from me when I left, and my stuff really wasn't worth shipping. All I have left in the States is my bike, my tent and my sleeping bag. It's weird, but I have so little stuff now and it still feels like way too much.

Back to Crack Den 2.0 though. The only really kind of eh things about the place are that there are no light fixtures, just the light bulbs in the ceiling, which definitely makes it look Crack Den ish, and then the spiders. I've only seen two so far, and they're just daddy long legs, but there are spider webs in all the corners and stuff.

Still, it's a huge upgrade. And I'm already so much more comfortable here. Pictures to come.